When
I was a teenager growing up in an evangelical Christian culture, I heard many
people praise C.S. Lewis’ book Mere
Christianity. My family, youth pastors and evangelical peers who had read
it encouraged me to give it a shot. Although these people differed widely, when they spoke of the book they all referred to it in reverential
language, similar to the way punk fans describe the Ramones’ self-titled album.
I remember a pastor once suggesting Christians read the book once a year, every
year — it was that good.
In
my late teens and early twenties, I was trying to figure out why exactly I didn’t believe this
whole Christianity thing, why I felt like a black sheep in an evangelical
flock. I tried to talk myself into believing Christian doctrines, hoping that
would alleviate the sense of alienation. When that didn’t work, I tried to
convince myself that, despite my sincere doubt, I actually did believe. I was really a Christian, I just didn’t realize it yet.
So I snagged a worn paperback copy from my dad’s bookshelf and dove in. (After
all, the Chronicles of Narnia was a
pretty cool series — and that Reepicheep dude was bad-ass.) Perhaps I wanted Lewis
to convince me of something, although I wasn’t sure what. I read the book
closely, and, in anti-climactic fashion, not much happened. I
finished feeling no more Christian than before.
Fast-forward
about a dozen years. Two months before my wife was expected to give birth to
our daughter, we moved to a different neighborhood in DC. I was boxing up all
my books when, stuffed between a P.D. James mystery and some random haiku
collection, I spotted that worn old paperback copy of Mere Christianity.
Lewis was, and still seems to be, the most widely-respected Christian apologist of the 20th Century, and Mere Christianity is his seminal work. Written in the 1950s, the language is more engaging than any Sunday morning sermon I’ve heard. Lewis is a far superior writer than any other Christian apologist I’ve come across, and he shows a respect for language that I find lacking in most Christian apologetics. So, I read the same copy of this book again. And, like many books I read, I engaged with the text by writing a response. In this lengthy blog post, I will share my thoughts about the text.
I prepared to toss it in the donate pile, but paused, and began flipping through the pages. Passages jumped out at me and caused me to react more than I had expected. The language flowed beautifully, but the arguments grabbed me and instilled a strong desire to respond.
Lewis was, and still seems to be, the most widely-respected Christian apologist of the 20th Century, and Mere Christianity is his seminal work. Written in the 1950s, the language is more engaging than any Sunday morning sermon I’ve heard. Lewis is a far superior writer than any other Christian apologist I’ve come across, and he shows a respect for language that I find lacking in most Christian apologetics. So, I read the same copy of this book again. And, like many books I read, I engaged with the text by writing a response. In this lengthy blog post, I will share my thoughts about the text.
I
read this book with no expectation that Lewis’ arguments would convince me of
anything. To be clear: I did not read this book specifically to attack it or to
denigrate Lewis or those who would propose similar arguments. Many of the
people I love most in this word are theists, and I think no less of them as
people because we differ on these issues. Even though I’m an atheist, I feel an
almost compulsive need to engage with religious arguments and religious
believers. I’m endlessly fascinated by the reasons people give for their
beliefs, especially those beliefs that I do not share. For me, an open and
honest discussion of faith, doubt and disbelief is healthy, and, when done with
respect, I believe these conversations can be positive and helpful for all
involved. Sometimes they can even be fun.
I’m
not going to respond to every point Lewis makes, because that would require a
book, but I’ll dissect some of the points that stuck out most to me.
Let’s
dig into the text.
In
the Preface, Lewis provides a few disclaimers, including one about Christian
sects: “The reader should be warned that I offer no help to anyone who is
hesitating between two Christian ‘denominations.’ You will not learn from me
whether you ought to become an Anglican, a Methodist, a Presbyterian, or a
Roman Catholic.” He also makes a pretty interesting comment about sectarian
disputes between Christians: “Our divisions should never be discussed except in
the presence of those who have already come to believe that there is one God
and that Jesus Christ is His only Son.”
This quote clarifies Lewis’ target audience
and purpose. I don’t think this book was written to convince unbelievers, but
to reassure those who already believe. (I think this description applies to the
vast majority of books in the Christian apologetics sub-genre.)
Morality, Justice and God
In the
first part of his book, Lewis sets up his argument for the existence of God by
describing what he calls “the Law of Human Nature” or the “Rule of Decent
Behaviour.” When two people quarrel, each person attempts to justify their
position to the other, and in the process they appeal to “some kind of standard
of behavior which he expects the other man to know about.” When disagreements
arise, it is obvious that the aggrieved party appeals to a certain standard. Lewis eventually argues
that the ultimate source of this standard is God, and without God, no such standard
is possible.
Lewis
maintains that all societies and cultures have comparable ideas of “Right and
Wrong.” (It doesn’t take long to become tired of Lewis’ constant capitalization of
improper nouns.) Lewis foresees some objections to this assertion and attempts
to shoot them down. For example: “I know that some people say the idea of a Law
of Nature or decent behavior known to all men is unsound, because different
civilisations and different ages have had quite different moralities. But this
is not true.” This
is one of those sentences I had to read a few times to make sure I understood
it correctly. Lewis is demonstrably wrong. This country was founded on slavery,
as were some societies in Biblical times, when people owned other people as
property (a practice sanctioned in the scriptures). In different ages, people
were routinely put to death for apostasy, blasphemy or deviance from rigid laws
governing sexual activity, and this is still the case in some societies today.
Lewis
is pretty sharp in his description of the moral argument, and he preempts an example of a rebuttal:
the practice of killing witches. “For example, one man said to me, ‘Three
hundred years ago people in England were putting witches to death. Was that
what you call the Rule of Human Nature or Right Conduct?’” This man Lewis quotes is
attempting to make a good point: our ideas about morality change as we learn
more and empathize more with other people. But Lewis completely misses this point
and responds: “But surely the reason we do not execute witches is that we do
not believe there are such things.” First of all, I’m sure there are Christians
who believe witches exist, and the Bible mentions witches (and killing them).
If you believe in virgin births and demon-possessed pigs and the dead coming back to
life, are witches really that much of a stretch? According to
Lewis, though, the only reason we don’t execute witches anymore is because we
don’t believe they’re real. But, Lewis adds, if witches did exist: “… surely we would all agree that if anyone deserved the
death penalty, then these filthy quislings did.” I find it strange that the man
claiming to stand atop the only true moral foundation advocates executing
witches, but perhaps my extra-Biblical morality is far too inferior to grasp
this concept.
Lewis
again preempts objections to his notion of universal morality by saying: “There
have been differences between their moralities, but these have never amounted
to anything like a total difference.” I fail to see the measurement Lewis uses
to determine minor and total differences. Generally, I agree that many people have somewhat similar notions about morality, and different cultures and times can show a certain level of consistency. On the other hand, the differences are tremendous. I would call societies structured on
slavery and societies where slavery has been abolished to be totally different
in their moral foundation. But Lewis is too mired in his assumption that God is
source of all moral standards (and, therefore, everyone has relatively comparable moral standards) that he brushes aside historical examples that
nullify his argument.
Human
beings strive to do good, to achieve great things, to accomplish impossible
goals. Lewis looks at the processes of personal and social progress and sees a
human drive toward “perfection,” a notion to which Lewis is overly attached.
Since people are striving toward perfection, Lewis argues, a state of
perfection must exist. Of course, humans cannot reach this state of perfection,
and they are solely to blame for their failure to attain the unattainable. Later,
this is the gap where Lewis inserts God as the necessary solution to what I see as a manufactured
problem.
Lewis’
argues most vociferously when discussing our incapability to make
determinations about morality and justice. Without a perfect God, Lewis argues,
our petty attempts at justice and morality are doomed to fail.
But this is simply not true. We do have the capability to make
moral judgments. We do so every day — and God has nothing to do with it. Humans are perfectly capable of developing moral values on our own, and I see no reason to believe anyone’s God should get the credit for our basic human decency. When
people are harmed, we can right those wrongs, or at least we can
try. Sure, we can never achieve absolute morality or absolute
justice, but these are impossible and unrealistic notions anyway. I would rather focus on trying to make things better instead of beating ourselves up for not being perfect, as God supposedly is.
I
think this idea of absolute or ultimate morality is the real source of my contention
with Lewis. He thinks of God as ultimately moral and ultimately just (terms I don’t think he defines adequately).
So, humans, as imperfect beings, cannot create a
perfectly just or moral society — but so what? Notions of perfect justice don’t
mean much in reality. And what would an ultimately just or moral society look
like? Morality and justice are complicated things that societies need to work out in different ways. I ’m more concerned with progress in this life, while Lewis seems focused on perfection in some other life.
To
Lewis, God is the barometer, without whom we are lost and helpless in making
sense of these issues. Describing his own experience as a non-believer, Lewis writes: “My argument against God was that the universe seemed so
cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man
does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line.”
We
don’t need God to justify the contrast between straight lines and crooked
lines. Here, in the material world, we can observe straight lines and contrast
them with crooked lines. We can examine how straight lines and crooked lines
differ in demonstrable ways. Similarly, we do not need a supernatural being to
hand down an impervious guidebook of justice — we can clearly observe just and
unjust actions committed in real time, and we can alter our behavior to create
a more just society. None of this requires a deity.
Amid these discussions about morality and justice, Lewis has a pattern of riffing on the same general theme: If there is no God, nothing matters. “If
the universe is not governed by an absolute goodness, then all our efforts are
in the long run hopeless.” Later, Lewis refers to atheism as “too simple”
because atheists believe “the whole universe has no meaning.” And again: “God
cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not
there. There is no such thing.”
When
I hear claims like these from Christians, I’m both frustrated and saddened. It’s a
mantra I’ve heard over and over again — If God doesn’t exist, everything is
hopeless and meaningless, a big doggone crapfest, and… Oh, stop it! If a Christian can see no
value without God, well, that sucks, but it doesn’t mean the rest of us are this miserable.
As conscious beings, we ascribe our own value to the people, places and things around us. I find fulfillment in the fleeting beauty of breaking waves, the incalculable value of non-human animals, the feeling I get when I help someone less fortunate than me, the temporary bliss offered by a sip of a fine wine. These things are invaluable but impermanent, and their worth does not depend on the presence or absence of any gods. I find it arrogant and condescending for anyone to claim sole possession over all things valuable and meaningful in the human experience. I’ve heard Christians accuse atheists of being nihilists more times than I care to remember, but here I feel the need to turn the tables. Comments like Lewis’ strike me as pitifully nihilistic.
As conscious beings, we ascribe our own value to the people, places and things around us. I find fulfillment in the fleeting beauty of breaking waves, the incalculable value of non-human animals, the feeling I get when I help someone less fortunate than me, the temporary bliss offered by a sip of a fine wine. These things are invaluable but impermanent, and their worth does not depend on the presence or absence of any gods. I find it arrogant and condescending for anyone to claim sole possession over all things valuable and meaningful in the human experience. I’ve heard Christians accuse atheists of being nihilists more times than I care to remember, but here I feel the need to turn the tables. Comments like Lewis’ strike me as pitifully nihilistic.
The Trilemma
If
you’re familiar with Christian apologetics, you’ve probably heard of Lewis’
famous “trilemma,” which has been cited widely by Christian apologists since
the publication of this book. This argument has made a strong and lasting impact
on Christian thinkers, and I’ve heard many Christians play with this same riff.
This is Lewis’ point: You can’t simply believe Jesus was a great moral teacher. Rather, given
the statements attributed to Jesus in the Bible, you have to categorize Jesus of
Nazareth as one of the following three: 1) The Lord, 2) a lunatic “on a level
with the man who says he is a poached egg” or 3) “something worse,” like a
demon or even “the Devil of Hell.”
The
argument goes like this: Jesus consistently claimed to be the Son of God in the
flesh, a prophet of Yahweh, and the only cure for eternal damnation. In responding
to the proclamations Jesus made about himself, one has two options: to accept
these claims as true, or to reject them.
If
you accept them as true, well, problem solved. He said he’s the Lord, you
believe he’s the Lord, and that does it. But if you reject these claims, you
are, Lewis argues, making your own assertion about the nature of Jesus. Lewis’ construct
compels the unbeliever to claim: 1) Jesus was an evil liar (he wasn’t the Lord,
he knew he wasn’t the Lord, but said he was anyway); or 2) a lunatic (he wasn’t
the Lord but believed himself to be). “But let us not come with any patronising
nonsense about His being a great human teacher,” Lewis writes. “He has not left
that open to us.”
I
think Lewis’ dilemma is cited so widely because, on its face, it seems
reasonable, and the construction of the argument possesses a degree of internal
consistency. It also critiques those who believe Jesus was a great moral
teacher, but reject his divinity — something apologists argue is a whitewashing
of Jesus’ message.
As
you may have guessed, I reject Lewis’ limited construction. First of all, I’m
not so sure Jesus actually made claims of his own divinity. Sure, the gospels say he made such claims, but those books
were not written by people who spent time with Jesus. In a long game of
telephone, what the final person proclaims is usually quite different from
what the original speaker said.
But,
putting that aside, let’s say Jesus really did claim to be God. I still don’t
see Lewis’ famous dilemma as a dilemma. I see no reason to accept the claim
that Jesus was God. But, given that belief, I see no need to actively declare
that Jesus was either a liar/demon or a lunatic. Many people have claimed to be God,
but I feel no need to make a declarative statement about whether all of these
people were correct or insane or liars. Perhaps Jesus was both a liar and a
lunatic — who knows? I do not have enough information to make a decision.
And
even if Jesus was a lunatic or a liar (or perhaps a bit of both), that does not
necessarily invalidate some of the better moral teachings that are credited to
him. The Golden Rule is a good moral standard because it focuses on human
wellbeing and encourages empathy. If a crazed man or a compulsive liar claiming
to be God preached about following the Golden Rule, his mental state and
dishonesty in other contexts do not negate the value of this specific moral
teaching. Such a person would be a hypocrite and probably untrustworthy, sure,
but that’s not particularly shocking or novel.
I
respectfully reject these three options and will continue to think of Jesus a
generally (but not entirely) good moral teacher.
Free Will vs. Evil
Lewis
briefly brings up the God vs. existence of evil problem, but takes the
well-traveled path of dismissing evil as a necessary downside of free will. “If a
thing is free to be good it is also free to be bad. And free will is what has
made evil possible. Why, then, did God give them free will? Because free will,
though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any
love or goodness or joy worth having.” I can follow his discussion of
free will, and I find it interesting, but it only makes sense if we remove an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving God
from the equation. If we keep that God in the equation, well, I’d fall back on
Epicurus:
“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not
able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”
Blood for Forgiveness
Lewis
writes that “the chief point of the story” of Jesus is “His death and His coming
to life again.” Christians “think the main thing He came to earth to do was to
suffer and be killed.” Lewis continues: “We are told that Christ was killed for
us, that His death has washed out our sins, and that by dying He disabled death
itself. That is the formula. That is Christianity.”
I
understand the theological thread Lewis is following, but the formula
doesn’t add up for me. It never has. God sends his son to become a person, to be crucified and killed, and
then God raises his own son from the dead. How is this any solution to the problem
of sin? How does this process work? I’ve read Romans. I’ve read apologists who
try to explain the doctrines, but the equation never adds up for me. The
whole scenario seems like an incredibly unnecessary attempt to solve a non-existent
problem in the most self-serving way possible.
Even
if the Jesus’ blood for our sin exchange made sense, I don’t believe any these events
actually occurred. I see no good reason to believe the extraordinary claim that
Jesus was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life full of miraculous
performances, was crucified and killed, and then rose from the dead. I don’t
buy it, and I have not yet come across an apologist who gives a reasonable
explanation for why I should believe this myth to be historic reality.
Also,
if Jesus’ crucifixion for sins exchange was so momentous — the most important
thing God could ever demonstrate to us — why did he bury all extra-Biblical accounts?
Why do we have nothing else to rely on except copies of copies of copied
documents written by the very people who wanted to promote the notion of Jesus’
divinity? Why is there no evidence? Why are we left to dissect these obscure philosophical
arguments when God could just demonstrate to us that Jesus actually existed, actually
died, and actually rose from the dead? If this is the most important event in
human history, why is it so shoddily documented?
Lewis on “Authority”
Lewis
is a steadfast defender of the authority of The Bible. “Do not be scared by the
word authority,” he cautions. “Believing things on authority only means
believing them because you have been told them by someone you think
trustworthy.”
But I think all authority should be justified. And I don’t think you believe something just
because it was told to you by an authority; you should believe something
because that something has been reasonably demonstrated to be true.
Lewis
lays down an incredibly lazy example: “I believe there is such
a place as New York. I have not seen it myself. I could not prove by abstract
reasoning that there must be such a place. I believe it because reliable people
have told me so.”
Well,
for starters, you can go to New York. Lewis could have read newspapers from New
York, and watched movies filmed in New York, and interviewed people who lived
in New York for many years. Heaven is not a place you can visit. You can’t
interview anyone who met Jesus. We have no reliable sources of information
about the historical Jesus, and I don't see any reason to accept the accuracy
of New Testament claims about Jesus’ divinity. Plus, the notion that a city
named New York exists is not an extreme claim. Cities exist, and Lewis has been
to them. Even if Lewis had never traveled to New York, accepting the idea that
such a place exists requires no extraordinary leap. It’s a whole different ball
game when we’re talking about virgin birth, resurrection from the dead, blood atonement
for sins, demons, eternal realms of worship or torture, etc. These are
extraordinary claims. The New York City comparison is ridiculous.
“Christian Behaviour”
On
page 73 of my paperback copy, Lewis says, “For the rest of this book I am going
to assume the Christian point of view, and look at the whole picture as it will
be if Christianity is true.” I appreciate the explanation, but this statement is a bit disingenuous. Lewis may take a bit longer than most to get going, but he assumes the Christian point of view very early on in this book. At least in the beginning, Lewis attempts to pose challenging questions about Christianity, and he holds ideas up to a level of scrutiny that I find uncommon among Christian writers. But for the last
two-thirds of the book, Lewis turns fully toward the choir and starts preaching.
He goes over some common ideas about how Christians should live. To appreciate any of this, you probably have to be an evangelical Christian with a social conservative outlook. To people like me, it sounds quite silly.
He goes over some common ideas about how Christians should live. To appreciate any of this, you probably have to be an evangelical Christian with a social conservative outlook. To people like me, it sounds quite silly.
Lewis
dedicates chapters to pride (which he calls the root sin), forgiveness (where
Lewis refers to pacifists as being “entirely mistaken”), charity, and other topics.
When he talks about sex, that’s when things get really weird. He takes the fundamentalist view: “Either marriage, with complete faithfulness to your partner, or else total abstinence.” I find it a bit strange that Lewis, who says he was never married and (unless he’s a hypocrite) never had sex with someone, blasting “the monstrosity of sexual intercourse outside of marriage.”
When he talks about sex, that’s when things get really weird. He takes the fundamentalist view: “Either marriage, with complete faithfulness to your partner, or else total abstinence.” I find it a bit strange that Lewis, who says he was never married and (unless he’s a hypocrite) never had sex with someone, blasting “the monstrosity of sexual intercourse outside of marriage.”
In
his treatise on Christian behavior, one part I find quite interesting is his
discussion of divorce. Lewis takes the position that divorce is unacceptable in
Christian circles, but he is wary of forcing church rules on society at large.
“There ought to be two distinct kinds of marriage: one governed by the State
with rules enforced on all citizens, the other governed by the Church with
rules enforced by her on her own members. The distinction ought to be quite
sharp, so that a man knows which couples are married in a Christian sense and
which are not.”
Lewis
doesn’t mention gay marriage, but I find this analysis relevant to that
discussion. If Lewis was consistent, following this reasoning, he would support
secular recognition of equal rights for gay and lesbian couples. Of course, he
would probably use some effusive language to describe how homosexuality was an awesomely abominable putridity, but I wonder: if Lewis was alive today, would he support
equal protection under the law for gay and lesbian couples? Consistency demands he must. If you’re a
Christian fan of Lewis, what do you think?
Wrapping Up
To
be honest, I found very little worth discussing in the last third of the book,
where Lewis gets further and further into the weeds of Christian doctrine. The
bases for his assertions become more and more muddled and obscure, and I just can’t
follow him. Lewis tries to explain the Doctrine of the Trinity, and to me it
all sounds like word games and mixed metaphoric nonsense. I can’t find any connection between his ideas and
reality, and since this is not supposed to be a work of fiction, I get
exhausted. I appreciate getting lost in Lewis’ fantasy, but it’s hard to
read arguments that sound fantastic when the author assumes them to be true.
In
his defense, Lewis does say: “There are certain things in Christianity that can
be understood from the outside, before you have become a Christian. But there
are a great many things that cannot be understood until after you have gone a
certain distance along the Christian road.” Fair enough, I guess, although I am
highly skeptical of the value and validity of a worldview that cannot be appreciated or understood until you agree to presuppose every aspect of it.
As I
expected, I didn’t come across much that surprised or shocked me in this book, but I enjoyed reading it. Lewis has a keen mind and he is willing to analyze and examine elements of his own worldview in a way that I have to respect. And when it comes to the quality of
the writing and the effort put into constructing his arguments, this is where Lewis stands head and shoulders above every Christian apologist
I’ve read or listened to. And if I could sit down and have a few pints with any Christian author of the last hundred years, it would unquestionably be C.S. Lewis.
What do you think about Lewis’ work? Have you read this book? If so, what are some of your impressions? I’m also very interested in hearing responses from any of my Christian friends out there. As I said at the beginning, I enjoy discussing these issues. For me, it’s not about convincing others I’m right and they’re wrong, it’s about appreciating the process of discussion itself.
Cheers!
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